Steinem, it hardly needs mentioning, was the face of Second Wave feminism, and though she resists the description “icon,” there are many who consider her to be just that. Steinem is now 77 and still active in the feminist movement. Last night she went on the Colbert Report to talk about the documentary, which, Colbert joked, is only 75% as long as documentaries about men.

Colbert insisted that sexism is over now. “Everything is equal,” he said, because now, “there’s Spanx for men.” Steinem, unsurprisingly, countered that sexism is far from over, though feminism has made great strides. She suggested that changing the way we think about masculinity is one of feminism’s great remaining challenges. After decades of feminism, she said, “we know that women can do what men and can do… But we don’t know that men can do what women can do.” And that needs to change, because “it’s really important that kids grow up knowing that men can be as loving and nurturing as women can.”

Gloria: In Her Own Words airs on HBO on Monday, August 19 at 9pm. Don’t miss it!

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Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia. She joined the Feministing team in 2009.
Her writing about politics and popular culture has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, New York magazine, Reuters, The LA Times and many other outlets in the US, Australia, UK, and France. She makes regular appearances on radio and television in the US and Australia. She has an AB in Sociology from Princeton University and a PhD in Arts and Media from the University of New South Wales. Her academic work focuses on Hollywood romantic comedies; her doctoral thesis was about how the genre depicts gender, sex, and power, and grew out of a series she wrote for Feministing, the Feministing Rom Com Review. Chloe is a Senior Facilitator at The OpEd Project and a Senior Advisor to The Harry Potter Alliance. You can read more of her writing at chloesangyal.com

Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia.

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In a thrilling game last night, the United States women’s national soccer team became World Cup champions again.

Some background: after a devastating final game loss to Japan back in 2011 (overtime, went to penalty kicks), the US ...

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For this week’s Feministing Five, we spoke with Dr. Kali Nicole Gross, who is an associate professor, associate chair of the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, and core faculty in Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

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For this week’s Feministing Five, we spoke with Dr. Kali Nicole Gross, who is an associate professor, associate chair of the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, and core faculty in Women’s & Gender Studies at the University ...